


"The Lie of the Land" AU story fragment

by Ravenskyewalker



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Episode AU: s10e08 The Lie of the Land, Episode: s10e08 The Lie of the Land, F/F, Gen, Heavy Angst, Mind Control, Regeneration, Story Fragment, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 02:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12571944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenskyewalker/pseuds/Ravenskyewalker
Summary: In an alternate "Lie of the Land," Bill's confrontation with the Doctor goes so much worse.





	"The Lie of the Land" AU story fragment

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fragment of an attempt to rewrite DW S10's "The Lie of the Land," because Toby Whithouse's episode made me angry with how badly it fumbled its intentions to be something impressive. After I read some fascinating episode speculation that turned out not to be remotely true, on a fansite I won't mention, then seeing the actual episode, I decided to write what I could of the ideas given me by that speculation. This is mostly what resulted. There are other bits and pieces (such as UNIT's Osgood resisting Monk control, making contact with Bill and Nardole, wanting Bill to clean up her mess from giving consent to the Monks, explaining regeneration, teaching Bill some gun skills, and sending her and Nardole to contact the Doctor to find out where he stands and kill him if necessary to stop his collaboration), but this seems to be the only piece that intends to cooperate with me. So, here it is, finally posted while the Twelfth Doctor is still the current Doctor.

Bill and Nardole made their way toward the sound of the Doctor’s voice as he spoke, presumably preparing another speech, and looked in through the door to see a spare, mostly-white room with Monk-related decorations predominating. The Doctor sat at a desk with masses of scattered paper piles around it, focused on his reading material.

“Are you ready?” asked Nardole softly, worried.

“No. Let’s just go ahead and do this.” It was good to see him in person again, not on a screen, after all this time, and it put her guard down. “Doctor?” Bill called quietly. “Doctor, it’s us.“ She entered with Nardole behind her.

The Doctor looked up from what he was reading, threw it down, and strode towards them with a glower and a call of “Guards!” Bill’s impression of him was tall, grim, wolfish, somehow projecting stern authority despite the ragged aspect of his long, dark blue coat and the bushiness of his hair. At least half a dozen armed guards charged in, quite before she could take in everything that was happening. That was a hell of a lot of guns all of a sudden...

“What are you doing here?” the Doctor demanded. The look in his eyes was one he had never directed at her before, such an intense anger that it wasn’t quite sane.

“We -- we came to rescue you.”

“After how long? Just the two of you? Who sent you in here?”

Nardole talked fast. “Oh, you know me with computers. I was always going to be able to find you eventually. All my idea.”

“Couldn’t even do that right. Outnumbered, outgunned -- very stupid. You shouldn’t be here. I’ll have to talk to the Monks about it.”

“Doctor...” Bill attempted, starting to reach toward him as he turned away. She was quickly reminded of too many watchful men with military-issue guns, who might not wait for orders.

“Stop,” the Doctor warned. “Move and they will kill you. Stay right there.” He moved toward a red handset on his desk.

Bill knew she had to stop him. “No! Doctor, please listen! Or talk to me and I’ll listen! Don’t make betraying me be the first thing you do!” Of course, he had already done that by calling in the guards.

At least he paused. “It’s not betrayal. The Monks are here to help humanity. Those who resist the truth need more help than most. You’re one of those, and we will help you.”

“Help me by being yourself, then! Stop being the nutter who’s made propaganda broadcasts for six months that get people taken to labor camps, or killed, or both!”

“This _is_ myself.” He gave her a sardonic smile, “Six months, you say? The Monks had to work with me for a while so I could truly see their intentions, but I came to understand. If you’ve spent all this time resisting the truth, we need to work on your lack of acceptance.”

 _Oh, my God_ , Bill thought. She realized she was shaking and wanted it to stop. “This isn’t the truth. This has never been the truth.”

“It will be the truth now.”

“No! They haven’t truly rewritten history yet, because I can remember before they were here. Do they have your TARDIS? Are they going to use both of you to literally rewrite it all?”

The Doctor stared at her, considering. “We went outside time aboard the TARDIS, while they... explained... and you experienced six months,” he mused. “What you suggest hasn’t happened yet.”

“But it will?”

“I expect so. The Monks are here to save you, and I will help them do that, since nothing I was doing before truly had much effect. Human society is stagnating. You’ve stopped moving forward. In fact, you’re regressing.”

“We’re primitives to you, anyway, right? But how is this an improvement?”

“It’s safer.”

“How is it safer for the people the Monks are killing? Your broadcasts encourage people to be sent to labor camps. Or they just get killed.”

“Because they’re resisting the truth.”

“What? The truth is that they’ve been here six months, not all of human history!”

“True enough, but dangerous talk. It makes you a memory criminal.”

 _Oh, my God_ was becoming a mantra running through Bill’s frightened mind. “What? No, please stop talking this way.”

“You mention the people who have died. Yes, and the Romans killed many people, but saved billions more from disease, war, famine, and barbarism. This isn’t much different.”

“You can look at it from an outside view, can’t you, since you’re not human and can leave the planet!”

“But I won’t be leaving here now,” the Doctor told her, “so I need the perspective.”

“You need to justify it to yourself? Why can we not have free will?”

“Ah, that...”

“Yeah, that! That’s what you’re about! You assigned me a 3000-word essay on free will. You wanted me to think about it; I’ve been thinking about it for six months!”

Unlikely, as usual, to stay still, the Doctor paced around the desk as he addressed her, his expression fierce, eyes glaring into what Bill thought might be her soul, and voice growling. “Ah, yes, so, let me have you think about it some more. You had free will and look what you did with it. You take free will and make everything worse, always make the worst decisions, the wrong choices. Worse than that, you had history saying to you, look, I’ve got some examples of fascism and fundamentalism here for you to study and avoid repeating. No? Okay, you carry on just as stupidly as always.” He was intimidatingly tall as he glared at her with a chilling fanaticism and ranted, and her trapped feelings grew. “I had to stop you, or at least not stand in the way of someone else who wanted to, because the guns were getting bigger, the stakes were getting higher, and any minute now, it was going to be "Goodnight, Vienna.' You know,” he added with a sarcastic laugh, “you never delivered that essay, anyway.”

“Because the world was invaded by zombie Monks!” she reminded him.

“Let me teach you something about taking responsibility. Yes, I’m collaborating with what you consider to be the enemy. You were the one who sold out her own planet, against my wishes and my advice, using me as your bargaining tool. You delivered me into their hands!”

“I was trying to save your life!” Bill protested. “You were blind and couldn’t see to escape an explosion! I couldn’t let you die!”

“I didn’t ask for my sight back, but because you decided what was best, now I have no freedom. The Monks gave me vision, but it’s their vision, so I see what they want me to see. It was confusing at first... as I said, they needed to work with me to explain it and enforce my understanding.”

“Wait, so... you’re brainwashed and you know it, but you’re doing it, anyway? Where’s the sense in that? The Doctor would fight! You know you would!”

“I can’t use that name. There _is_ no Doctor here. This is what I can do with what you've made of me, so don’t complain now! The Monks will take care of you better than you would yourselves. They’re not the Daleks; they bring peace and order.”

“Order? Since when has that been your thing?! You’re one of the biggest anarchists I know!”

“That has come to an end.”

He really wasn’t himself if he could say that. He lived with a chaotic sort of freedom, admitted that he’d stolen his TARDIS, had somehow found the self-discipline to be her professor and teach her some truly amazing things, and everything now was running counter to his own sense of self. This was hopeless, wasn’t it?

“All right, I get it. You’re doing what you think you have to do. Remember that talk we had the time we discovered the huge fish-creature under the Seine in Paris?” _Surely you must remember that, with a mind like yours. Because now I’m in the position you were trying to explain to me about, and I get it now..._

The Doctor looked unimpressed as he spoke to the guards around them. “That was a coded message. The big fish-creature was under the Thames. If I’d played along, she’d have known that I was tricking you. Guns down.”

The guards obeyed, standing down and waiting.

 _Ohhh, God._ Bill could feel reality losing all sense around her if he could openly betray her this way. That convinced her more than all his other words that this was a lost cause. Rescuing him wasn’t going to happen, and she had to act according to Osgood’s directives with which she'd sent them in here. If she did, she might not leave the room alive... but it might not matter anymore.

The Doctor sat at his desk again with a sigh, and reflected, “I’m sorry, Bill. I just really wanted to make you see. I must tell you again, you need help.”

“Not from the Monks,” Bill declared, her voice breaking as she tried to make him see her own truth. “I can’t believe this is real. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to resist for six months?” Now she was crying, feeling the wrongness trying to invade her mind, even as she fought it. “The Monks and you keep running through my head. It would’ve been so easy to just give in and believe the lies! I didn’t, because I wanted to be here for you, still _me_ , when you came back! I thought _you_ could at least resist! But you really have joined them! You’re going to keep helping them, going to keep collaborating, and turn me in?”

“I’ve told you, you left me no choice.”

Now she understand too well what the Doctor had meant on the Thames about available options sometimes being limited, other times he’d told her about doing what was necessary, and he’d just proven to be too good a teacher. So, Osgood’s plan, then.

She hauled Osgood’s sidearm out of her coat and went into a firing position with as steady an aim on the Doctor as she could manage, considering the sight and sound of all the guards in the room aiming right back at her.

The Doctor was back on his feet and slowly stepped toward her, quietly told her to put the gun down. He _would_ be that foolhardy, wouldn’t he? “I can’t do that, Doctor. You know that line about having no choice? If you’re what I made of you, I’m what you’ve made of me.”

“Ah, no, Bill, you don’t want to be a weapon. Stop this and they’ll help you.”

“Stop what _you’re_ doing. I don’t want that sort of help!”

He gave her an unnervingly nasty grin. “You’ll come to accept your masters.”

“What the--?! No one owns me!”

“The Monks own all of us now.”

Horrifying thoughts ran through Bill’s head -- yeah, she had to do this, had to take down the Doctor; it was down to her to stop him. But how could she consider it? He was her teacher, her friend, had been Earth’s defender... no. Right now, he was just the enemy, helping invaders. She sent her focus back to Osgood’s lessons. Go for his hearts, not his head; she really didn’t want to see anyone’s brains all over the room. If he died and did that regeneration trick, maybe it would break the Monks’ control. Not even she could miss at this range, and he was being _incredibly_ foolhardy standing directly in front of her. Was he _trying_ to draw her fire? Some part of him might want an end to this, then... but this way? He wouldn’t have to worry about it for long, but she’d have to live with it, if she survived opening fire in this room, and it would give her nightmares. It was already a nightmare, and going to get worse. _Oh, God, Mom, I’m sorry I’ve come to this..._

“All right, so -- take this seriously, Doctor,” she declared, letting cold focus take over from the fear. “Tell me again, right here and now, where you stand. Because I’ve been resisting for six months, while you’ve played propaganda minister, and I’ve seen things I never wanted to see. My planet is under someone else’s control, and I asked you to get it back for me, not do this. I need to end what my wrong decision started. If you help the Monks, nothing will ever stop them; they’ll be here forever. You’re not going to help us get free?”

“I won’t help you do that. This is my choice. It’s not a trick, not a plan. I have joined the Monks, and so shall you. Whatever it takes, I’m going to save you from yourselves.”

That was it, then. Bill opened fire with no further hesitation -- at least four shots, as quickly and steadily as she could fire through the distraction of the noise, just get the Doctor down so he couldn’t get back up. He staggered and grabbed for the desk behind him, and stayed on his feet for a moment, gasping and clutching his chest as his system struggled to carry on past the damage, but then he collapsed onto the floor.

Bill dropped the gun onto the floor and got over to him.. Sheer horrified reaction and grief hit her almost as hard as she’d hit him, which she couldn’t really afford with all the other guns in the room, but all the shaking and crying came back as she knelt by the Doctor. “oh, no no no...” was all she could get out. Just about aware that Nardole was with her, she protested, “I just wanted him to stop this! Why didn’t he stop?”

Then she realized that the brainwashing signal had gone, after all those months of it being intrusive background noise. Reality spun, and it could simply have been the force of her anguish, but... something was shifting? It finally sank in that the guards hadn’t returned fire. The sense of unreality...

“Wait,” she choked out. “What if this was all a simulation from the Monks? Should’ve just shot _myself_ to end the program.”

Nardole, trying to be of some support with a hand on her shoulder, snapped, ”No, Bill, you stop that,” with surprising force.

“Why? Might be better than living and feeling like _this_.” She gulped back another sob.

The man who seemed to be the guard captain had been directing his force, with a lot of muttering from them that Bill couldn’t focus on, and approached her. “Ma’am, I apologize for all of this. We’re not going to hurt you. Your friend tried to resist the Monks, but... well, as he said, they worked with him.”

“Torture?” asked Nardole.

"He held out for a while, but it couldn’t last. Then they added his mental force to their signal. That’s gone now.”

“Bill,” Nardole advised her, “get up and let’s back away somewhat. Regeneration energy can be dangerous.’

She tried to regain focus, but reality seriously felt as if it was cracking apart again, and her vision was blurry with more than just tears. “What’s...” As they backed away, she saw a fiery golden glow surround the Doctor’s body, and -- oh, that was strange. She wasn’t certain she was seeing properly...

He had changed from tall and silver-haired to someone smaller with black hair. This person moved, sat up, and muttered, “What the hell...” in a very different voice. The Doctor blinked, gave a wild brown-eyed stare, and jumped up, hand to head, to run hand through hair, then to hearts, to check on the intactness of this new body, blinked again dizzily, and laughed. “Well, that’s different.” And it certainly was, because, even though something was decidedly, steadily going wrong with space and time and reality itself, from what Bill’s senses were telling her, the Doctor was a woman -- dark and very attractive, Bill couldn’t help but note.

The Doctor snapped out of her distraction and addressed the guard captain, a formidable edge in her voice. “Enough with the guns already. I do not need you here, or to shoot this girl, whatever the Monks may think.”

“Ah, no... sir. Ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

“Yes, I’m still the Doctor. It’s called regeneration.”

“I am, or was, with UNIT -- not sure if I still am, after all this. I know your reputation. Strange to see it for myself.” He looked her in the eye, and they regarded each other steadily. “...All right. No signal. We seem to be free now. While we still can, ma’am, my team and I need to go monster-hunting.” The guard gestured at his team, the Doctor nodded back, and they hurried out of the room.

The Doctor put a hand to her head again and swayed as if ready to fall over. “Ohh, well, that’s more coherent than I usually manage so soon after this process. Perhaps that’s a good sign? Whew...” She shook her head. “Everything’s -- spinning. It could just be me, but perhaps not.”

“...oh, God, I don’t understand this...” Bill managed.

The Doctor’s attention snapped back to Bill. “No, I’m sorry, you wouldn’t. I’m alive.”

“But I shot you...”

“Good girl. You did what needed to be done.”

“But did I _need_ to do _that_?!”

“You were defending your planet, your people, from invasion and slavery.”

“And I killed you--”

“ --but I’m alive,” the Doctor stressed.

“God, no, six months of insanity was enough to make me pull the trigger. I didn’t think I could ever do that. I didn’t want to _know_ I could do that! Doctor, why did you -- why did you _terrorize_ me into doing it?!” Bill was trying not to sob again, knowing she couldn’t take much more emotional whiplash. “I just wanted to learn and explore -- I never wanted to be anyone’s weapon! I literally have your blood on my hands -- I know you’re alive, but I killed you in some way, so could you please stop denying it?”

“Forgive me... if you can?” the Doctor asked gently. She reached out carefully and rested her hand on Bill’s nearer shoulder. “I know you didn’t want that. We've both had a terrible six months. What you did broke their control... and was the only thing that was going to free me. I can see with my own vision and views again. And... oh dear, it isn’t just me; I can see that reality’s rather... cracking apart.”

“That’s not just my mind breaking under the strain, then?”

“Ah, no, Bill. You revoked your consent to the Monks when you shot me, as I was what they used to fuel their other reality when you told them to save me. The contract is broken, so this reality is crashing like a simulation gone wrong. The confusion is reality rebuilding itself.”

“Will I... stupid question, sorry... will I meet you again?”

“I really couldn’t say, Bill. I’m just a possibility. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly exist in this body.”

“I wish I could get to know you.”

The Doctor flashed a sudden grin. “That would be interesting, my dear. Now, reality is going to do some disturbingly twisty things, and I don’t know how much either of us will remember, but the Monks will still be on-planet and looking for consent. You and I -- well, he -- will have to resist. He’s likely to still be blind. Do try not to make any deals with them again. Please.”

“Then you’ll have to not be in as stupid a position as you were in when I consented. And maybe you could tell me you were still blind _before_ any more terrible emergencies happen?!”

“Yes, I -- he really should.”

“God, yes.” Bill reached up to touch the Doctor’s face with a deeply longing look in her eyes. “Come here, please.”

“What? Why?”

“So I can do this, silly.” Bill pulled the Doctor closer and kissed her. The Doctor, happily, made no attempt to resist. “If this is the last moment I ever get to see this you, I needed that. Because I’m me.”

The Doctor chuckled. “You certainly are. Enjoy your life."

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the female Doctor regeneration before Jodie Whittaker was cast, and she doesn't look like Whittaker (or like the actress the incorrect fannish speculation was certain was going to briefly play the alternate Doctor); I pictured her as Asian or Indian, but had no particular actress in mind.


End file.
